Oh, yes. My mother is still wearing MY old clothes from high school. (I'm 31 years old.) She picks things out of my Goodwill boxes and squirrels them away in her closet.

OMG, see I'm not alone! My mom does exactly this. They never let me get rid of things so all my old clothes (out of style, whatever) went into a garbage bag and into a basement. I found out too that my mom was wearing my old bras too (the small cup ones--she had lost around 30 pounds after my dad passed and could fit into them).

Perpetually breastfeeding or pregnant ENFP mom to a lot of kids...wife to a midwestern nice guy...living in tropical paradise...pink cats and homebirths rock!

Yup. As my parents' health is deteriorating, I now feel that I should take some responsibility for their home, and I have done my best to declutter and organize without stepping on too many toes. When we realized my mom would need regular household help, I finally got her permission to pack up all the junk from the main floor and get it into the basement. We bought a bunch of IKEA storage shelving, hoping to be able to stack things from the junk room in the basement to make room for junk from main floor.. DH found a bunch of boxes that hadn't been opened since a move in the early 80s. They still wanted to keep them but he played the water damage card and we got junk removal guys to haul off virtuallly the entire contents of that room. Now it's filling up with crap from the rest of the house, but at least it's in boxes, on shelves.

My minimalist tendicies increased as I get older and realize more and more what useless stuff my parents and in-laws keep.

My in-laws are hoarders. They buy and buy and buy stuff, but nothing leaves the house. Things they buy that would be useful (i.e. like a new phone when their old phone broke) tend to hang around in boxes way too long or just never get used. We don't take the kids over to their house anymore because 1) MIL smokes and everything smells of smoke (anything she gives us out of her house all smellls like smoke) and 2) it's way dangerous for the kids. Sad but true. They either come to our house or we see them at a relative's house.

My parents are not as bad, but they still have hoarder tendencies. Dad is pretty good about not buying much stuff, but then when it comes into the house, he won't get rid off it because "it's still good". For example, he wouldn't get rid of my brother's old computer from 1999 because it still worked. He wasn't using it, mind you, they had a new one, but "it was still good." I finally had it recycled/donated.
Mom just gets sentimental about stuff. She called the other day, because she was sorting through old papers:

Mom: Do you want your first birthday cards?

Me: What cards?

Mom: The cards all the family and friends gave you when you were 1 year old.

Me: ?????

I have never seen these cards (there must have been about 20) , didn't even know she had them, why would I want them? But my brother meanwhile, took his.

My minimalist tendicies increased as I get older and realize more and more what useless stuff my parents and in-laws keep.

Exactly what I was going to say! Why do people need to hang onto something "just in case"? Like my 58 yr old mother still has a crib in her basement?!? Also, she still has the poster they put up when my sister got married almost 20 years ago In-laws save old appliances (small ones) when they get new ones, just in case the new ones break, I guess. Um...why buy a new one then? I don't get it.

I keep just what we need...what we actually use on a daily basis...that's it. Life is too busy to waste time keeping extra junk clean and put away. BTW, my mom used to do the old routine of giving me her extra stuff until she saw us carting it off to Goodwill once. That was the end of that.

Both my parents are packrats, but off different kinds. Mom keeps every scribbled picture, craft, and photo along with hand-me down clothes and unfiled paperwork. Dad keeps the leftovers from projects around the house, farm, and old construction projects. He has stuff (nice stuff mind you) salvaged from jobs he did 20 years ago. They have the space to keep it all, but my goodness its overwhelming. I'm not a super simplistic nut yet, but I'm on my way there.

Oh, yes. My mother is still wearing MY old clothes from high school. (I'm 31 years old.) She picks things out of my Goodwill boxes and squirrels them away in her closet.

I could have written this post! Yesterday my mom just took a bag from my house that was going to Goodwill, AND she wears my old clothes.

My mom is a big hoarder and I REFUSE to get anywhere close to that so I am relentless about decluttering. I wish my mom would stop giving us so many knick knack items. Because I really would rather have the clear spaces instead of knick knacks but I feel bad when I get rid of the ones she gives me. But that is another topic.

One set of grandparents were hoarders, things were packed up to the ceiling, you walked through a trail system. The other set were not like that but would have expired canned goods they refused to throw out. I remember not even being able to place a glass of water anywhere in the living room because there was no room. My dad doesn't keep anything he doesn't use, his parents were the hoarders. My mother does declutter but keeps more stuff then I do. I go through things constantly, I can NOT stand clutter in my house, not even a box. I fight a battle with my mom who likes to bring a bag off stuff off weekly that she thought I could use.

Yes. Not that they live in squalor or are hoarders, per say, but they don't unclutter until they are overwhelmed. If you go into their bedroom, it's filled with little pieces of garbage and junk just laying around. (Not putrescible garbage, though.) They don't get rid of things they don't use anymore. It used to be that their whole house was like this. I grew up in a very cluttered house!

I still find it amazing that I can see the floor in my house. There aren't things crammed beside the couch, against the wall, etc. I can vacuum the whole floor without spending 45 minutes cleaning things off of it. It's novel.

I could have written this post! Yesterday my mom just took a bag from my house that was going to Goodwill, AND she wears my old clothes.

My mom is a big hoarder and I REFUSE to get anywhere close to that so I am relentless about decluttering. I wish my mom would stop giving us so many knick knack items. Because I really would rather have the clear spaces instead of knick knacks but I feel bad when I get rid of the ones she gives me. But that is another topic.

My parents are HUGE packrats and they smoke...so it makes everything smelly and gross. My mom has stuff from 45 years ago that is so useless and broke down and dirty. There is not an inch that is not stuffed within it's last inch. She can NEVER find anything, so she buys more, using the excuse that know she doesn't have any of something only to find out later she has 10 of something. She is constantly cleaning and trying to pack things away to "hide" from my dad.

I have been very minimalist since I was young. I am not attached to anything and have lived in a 500 sq. foot loft with just what I loved and needed. Even now, when we move, we use a small rental truck and our pick up truck. I can unpack our entire house in 2 days...with pictures on the wall and everything organized. I love it!!!